Abstract

Since its 1999 inception, the European Union’s Security and Defense Policy (ESDP), has quickly developed into a robust European policy area. However, as member states continue to have full control over their own military policies, friction between even unanimous, intergovernmental EUlevel decisions and national policies is bound to occur. This can be clearly seen upon national implementation of EU‐level ESDP decisions. Applying the Europeanization models of Radaelli (2003) and Börzel and Risse (2003), this study examines five areas of “misfit” between German military policy and ESDP which have caused or have the potential to cause difficulties in “downloading” or implementing EU‐level decisions to deploy German military forces under the ESDP: national strategy, ESDP‐NATO preferences, defense expenditure, deployable personnel, and finally, the parliamentary approval process. After examining the areas of friction in detail in the empirical section, analysis is provided based on the Europeanization model to classify and explain the degree of change which has occurred within each area towards alleviating “misfit” between German policy and the ESDP.